


if i can't find the cure then (i'll fix you with my love)

by blifuys



Category: Persona 5
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Hanahaki Disease, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship, Very Minimal I Swear, Yusuke with a Single Braincell, idiot in love, minimal angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21937387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blifuys/pseuds/blifuys
Summary: Days before Yusuke's due to submit a painting for an important art show, he collapses - only flowers surround him as the Goddess stares at him, face blank, white, no color.He wonders what her face looks like.Or: Yusuke learns emotions outside of art. He's smart enough to figure it out through logic. Probably.
Relationships: Kitagawa Yusuke/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	if i can't find the cure then (i'll fix you with my love)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gyoomie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyoomie/gifts).



> haha SIKE! MERRY CHRISTMAS GYOOMIE, YOU'VE BEEN PUNK'D! I LOVE YOU, I ADORE YOU, ~~and i hope you like this cause i worked super hard on it and really had to use my donkey brain for this~~ and i want u to be forever happy
> 
> so i was like: i wAnT To WrItE HaNAhAkI, ANgStY rIgHt, but this fic just used hanahaki as a means for Yusuke to Figure Out Shit. Like divine intervention came down and slapped the back of his head and shouted "GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER KITAGAWA UR IN LOVE"
> 
> behold. this is the result of my brain thinking it's smart.

He watches her on the canvas, arms curled in front of her form as she looks down. Her eyes are shut, long lashes brushing against her cheekbones as her lips curl into a shy, yet blindingly dazzling smile. The way Yusuke brings her to life on the canvas makes her seem like a divine being, a celestial goddess smiling down upon her people—gifting her blessings to those who wished for it.

In shades of reds, yellows, golds and oranges, he watches Autumn slowly construct herself over his pencil lines and rough sketches.

It’s nothing he isn’t used to. His process is the same as always—sketch out what’s in mind, figure out which colours bring out the image in his mind’s eye the best, and diligently work the paint over his canvas until it all comes together, making changes here and there as he progresses through his work.

This time though, something’s new.

Outside, the air has cooled down enough for people to start swapping out thin, skin-baring outfits for thicker, warmer clothes. He’s begun to wear double layers whenever he leaves the dorm, always careful to take care of himself—there’s no pocket of time to spare of course. He needs to spend as much time as he can dedicating himself to his passions, to his first mix of paint and the last caresses of painted canvas against his fingertips.

Sure, Yusuke gets sick sometimes. Who doesn’t? But he’s never had anything that a bit of fever medicine and water didn’t fix. His illnesses have never lasted for more than three days _at maximum_ , and he had always intended to keep it that way.

So when he’s staring at the woman curled into herself on the canvas as he’s laying on his side, body pressed and crumpled against the floor as he’s surrounded in a pool of tiny, cream-white petals with a sliver of yellow where the stems should be, stained ever so slightly with his own blood, he knows that this particular painting is going to take longer. Much, much longer. It’s frustrating. His deadline is in two weeks. He doesn’t think he has time for this at all, but here he is, crumpled like a sad little paper ball covered in blood, spit and petals while he glares at the incomplete painting.

The canvas stares back at him in its indifferent smugness, the bits that just don’t look right taunting him for his lack of skill and artistry to make his art _perfect_.

He breathes steady, air finally entering his lungs after a particular horrible coughing episode, focused on the tickle in his throat that refuses to go away, no matter what he does.

\---

 _Hanahaki Disease_ is what a quick internet search identifies it as. The physical manifestation of a love unreturned, unrequited. Deadly to the inflicted, it seems that the love takes root in the lungs, only to grow and fill the trachea and the lungs with a variety of blooms and blossoms. He knows it’s oddly poetic, for something so beautiful to exist. Yusuke mentally checks his illness against the symptoms listed on the white-and-blue screen on his phone, finding that his case fits the disease to a T.

And it seems that the others are _not_ happy about that.

“I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this. It’s nothing serious, only incessantly distracting at most.”

“DISTRA—Kitagawa Yusuke. Do you _understand_ how serious Hanahaki is?” Ryuji all but yells, trying to keep his voice at a good level so he doesn’t scare off the other patrons of the diner they’re sitting it, lacquered table between them empty as they wait for their dishes to arrive. Akira is sitting next to Ryuji, bodies pressed flush against each other as usual—but there’s a wrinkle between Akira’s brows today, nothing like the easygoing indifference he likes to wear on his face. “You could _die_. From _love_! It’s supposed to make the world go round, not rip your fuckin’ body up from the inside!”

“What’s ripping up a body from the inside?”

“Ann! If _anyone_ can talk sense into this dude it’s you!”

Over the boisterous din of the diner and from Ryuji’s foul mouth, the gentle lull of Ann’s voice comes as a respite. She’s always had a pull over him, and as the time together lengthens with each and every day, he finds his eyes drawn to locks of golden-silk hair cascading like a waterfall—eyes hued so blue that he feels like he’s looking straight up at the sky. Yusuke is of the opinion that Ann is the epitome of _perfect_ , like art defined in the quirk of her glossed lips and tinkling-bell laugh.

Ann quirks a brow up before she slides into the leather seat, settling herself down next to Yusuke. He automatically adjusts himself so that Ann has more room to make herself comfortable.

“What’s going on?”

“ _This dude_ ,” Ryuji jabs a finger in Yusuke’s direction, his eyebrows pulled down so far that a wrinkle begins to form between his eyebrows, “’s coughin’ up _petals_ , but he’s only brushin’ it off as an ‘incessant distraction’.” He pulls his voice down enough for a decent attempt at Yusuke’s voice, intonation patterns and all.

“Hanahaki?” Ann looks _shocked,_ “Yusuke, you’re in love?”

“If any of you have been listening for the last ten minutes, you’d know that I am definitely _not_ in love—”

“Then why ya coughin’ up PETALS, bro?”

“That is—”

“Enough,” Akira’s quiet command is enough to shut the argument down, his voice like a disappointed dog owner when he sees his friends misbehave in public. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Yusuke, do you know _who_ you’re in love with?”

Love. A word so deliberately misused by thousands—if not millions. The people who would consider the most miniscule of attractions as _love_ , as if a protruding chest and posterior could replicate the fluttering in his chest when he watches the colour spread across the blank _nothingness_ , watching the void transform into a mesmerising ocean of emotion as his heart threatens to burst open from the overwhelming rawness of it all.

To say he _loves_ someone, to imply that there’s something _more_ than art that resides in his heart—the nerve.

“No,” so he says, his eyes threatening to roll back into his head, though he stops it in time just in case Ryuji swipes at him again for being rude to Akira, “I have no idea who.”

“Dude, you don’t hafta pretend around us, we won’t tell her—him—uh. _Them_. This is an inclusive household, bro—”

“Ryuji, if I knew, don’t you think I would have directly gone to the source to settle my problems? I wouldn’t have let myself fester to this sorry state.”

The group gapes at Yusuke, and the astonished staring makes Yusuke aware of an antsy itch he doesn’t realise he’s been feeling since he sat in front of Akira and Ryuji—further aggravated by Ann’s concerned staring. He feels like shouting at them that it doesn’t _matter_ , he doesn’t quite have the time nor the energy to deal with romance and other frivolous matters of the heart. The itch only worsens in his throat, and he feels petals tickling against his throat, like a feather sweeping against the most sensitive regions in his gullet.

His conundrum is quite vexing, to say the least.

“Now, now,” Ann speaks over the din, and all Yusuke can think is _finally_ , as the boys finally stop discussing between themselves and deciding just which infuriating person put those flowers in Yusuke via elimination (“Y’think it’s Makoto?” “No, Makoto has better standards—“), “Let the experts take over.”

Ann takes a good look at him, her gorgeous baby blue eyes sweeping over Yusuke from head to toe, and all Yusuke feels is _naked_ , like he can’t hide anything from the woman herself. She’s always been an enigma to him, the woman who rivals the goddesses in beauty and the elites in intelligence—from the very day he first laid eyes on her, he’s not stopped in his pursuit to replicate the entrancing refinement in his artwork, only to come short of perfecting it every single time he’s tried.

She infuriates him, for reasons he does not yet know, and does not care to find out himself.

So he thinks. He thinks about everything else that isn’t _this_ , that isn’t the meadow blooming in his lungs at his expense. He thinks of replenishing his paint, properly shaping his brushes back into shape, the canvas that sits in his room with the face of the goddess empty, hollow, _missing—_

“You don’t have any experience in romance, do you, Yusuke?” Ann’s glossed lips curl up in amusement, and there’s a red-hot feeling on Yusuke’s cheeks—embarrassment, maybe.

“Not at all, I suppose. I never really had the time to pursue feelings.”

“Nonsense! You ‘pursue feelings’ every day! It’s what artists do!” She curls her long fingers around her phone, flicking the screen to life as the shades of pink brighten up on the device, “Since you’re surprisingly inept with love, I’ll help you!”

“Oh, _goody_ ,” Ryuji rolls his eyes and drawls, leaning his chin on his hands while he glances at them both with bored eyes. Beside him, Akira reaches and pushes his glasses further up his nose with a contemplative look in his eyes, as if beginning to put a puzzle together, “We get to see Ann teach Yusuke be even mushier and gooey-er than he _already_ is.”

“Excuse me, I am far from mushy _or_ gooey. What you deem to be mushy and gooey is simply how _you_ act around Akira.”

Ryuji goes an indescribable shade of red, and Yusuke is almost in shock that Ryuji had the capacity to feel embarrassed in the first place. Beside him, Ann bursts out laughing, slapping her hand over her mouth to keep herself from laughing way too hard for normal public acceptance, but the snorts that escape from her makes Yusuke feel a little better about this, _somehow_.

He’s not sure why. Usually, he’d be a lot more pissed off or annoyed about this.

“S—Sorry,” She clears her throat with a wry smile on her face, the leftovers of her laughter all over her face as she pulls herself to composure. Ryuji shoots her a silent glare, and Akira—as ever—is glancing at her with an indecipherable look in his eye. “Anyway, we need to get down to the bottom of this, Yusuke. It’s serious enough that you’ll potentially die from this, so be a good boy and listen, okay?”

“And may I inquire as to _why_ you are so concerned about my wellbeing, Ann?” Yusuke feels himself bristling again. This again. This nonsensical pursuit for something that should be considered trivial and an absolute waste of time. The woman beside him rolls his eyes once she hears his defiant reply, and she leans in, close enough for him to see the slight pout of her glossed lips already forming.

“Because you’re very important to me? Duh. I thought you know that!”

Before Yusuke can respond to that, the scratching in his throat gets _too much_ to bear, and his throat suddenly fills with stems and leaves—making it impossible to breathe. He feels like he’s choking, slapping his hand onto his chest in hopes of dispelling the strange objects lodged in his throat. He thinks he hears someone call his name, past the cotton in his ears—desperately trying to reach for him before he descends too far into the pain shooting through his lungs.

With a slap of a hand on his back—he’s not sure _whose_ hand that is at the moment, he leans his chest over, and a handful of petals and leaves get dumped on the wooden table separating him from his companions.

When he opens his eyes, Yusuke sees it—the beautiful powder pink petals stained a little too red at the ends. The mildly scalloped edge of the petals are gorgeous, and the colour is dispersed across it like a drop of paint mixing with water. The drops of blood look like beads of morning dew on the surface of the petals, making them look even redder than they actually are. He quietly admires how beautiful they look, in a warped sort of way, spotted with something as grotesque as _blood_.

Until he tastes the copper in his mouth.

“ _God,_ dude, that’s fuckin’ gross.” Ryuji sticks out his tongue and gags quietly to himself, his face twisted in disgust when he eyes the pile of petals mixed with spit and blood. Akira looks just as—if not more—concerned at the state of Yusuke’s condition in general.

A brush against the side of his body brings him to the realisation that beside him, Ann is stroking his back, trying to comfort him after what had just happened. The patting soothes him immensely, and he swears he can feel the muscles in his body uncrumple back into smooth tranquillity, although for some reason, the itch in his windpipe festers, and somehow it feels like a burn’s been left behind in the sensitive layers of his body—permanent and marred.

“Fine,” Yusuke ends up saying, if only to stop the looks around him from wilting even further. They look pathetic, like kicked puppies and kids denied from candy, but he wasn’t going to let them go home with a foul mood. It’ll just end up ruining his mood, and affect his work in the meantime, marring his progress even further. “I’ll work with you guys.”

The smile on Ann’s face at his acceptance is enough for him to reach out for a second glass of water, downing it to the very last drop in attempt to stop the fire in his lungs from spreading.

\---

“So _no one_ comes to mind when you think of love?” Ann’s sitting in Yusuke’s dorm room today, along with Futuba—who had decided plainly that she is going to involve herself in the happenings of Yusuke’s non-existent love life, because _wow Inari actually has a proper working heart under the fox mask? Shocking—_

Yusuke told her if she was going to make a lot of noise, he’d tell Akira that she skipped school last week in order to make it in line for the limited edition _Neo-Featherman and the Moon Shrine_ Figurine set release.

“Not at all,” Yusuke smears a healthy amount of crimson over the saccharine yellows and sun-lit oranges, “What you describe as symptoms of being in love can easily be applied to my work. Simple as that.”

 _Of course he’s in love with his work, he’s_ basically _a repressed Victorian man,_ he hears Futaba mutter to Ann, only to have the other woman hushing her to silence, as if Yusuke hasn’t heard this slight towards him already. No matter, he already knows the truth, there isn’t anyone alive in the world that placed the garden of flowers in him, and most likely he would find another way to remove them for his own wellbeing. He’s too young to die after all, there are far too many paintings he has yet to complete, and he’s not going to let _feelings_ get in the way of that.

He begins to gently pull his small brush upwards, leaving emerald green strokes to mimic the patterns of grass growth, but something doesn’t seem right about it. Something about his painting’s missing, and he feels like he’s not _quite_ piecing something together.

He feels irritated to no end, and his skin bristles very slightly, brows furrowed in thought. His focus is beginning to wane, drifting to something else— _on what_ , he’s not quite sure just yet.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Ann starts again, and everything in her voice screams defiance—it’s clear to anyone listening in that she isn’t going down without a fight. “You’re telling me that when you look at your _art_ you feel happiness, lightheaded, your heart pounding like you might have a heart attack _and_ , to top it all off, longing?”

The press of a fully-saturated brush against the canvas. The colours don’t match. He pulls off the brush again.

“Simply put, yes.”

He mixes white into his paint. The colours are too bright now. He feels a headache coming on, and the burning in his lungs grows bigger.

“You are going to drive yourself into the grave.”

Yusuke sighs as he puts down his brush, because his focus has decided to exit left for the fifth time today. Alongside the nagging tickle in his throat, he wonders exactly which God he’s offended lately, and he wonders if it’s feasible to head to the nearest temple to offer his apologies for his sin, _whatever_ he’s done so wrong to deserve holy retribution.

“I haven’t spent enough time with anyone to identify feelings,” Yusuke’s shocked at how honest he sounds. He’s not _lying_ , but something inside him nags at him that he _knows_ , he knows and he just doesn’t think of himself deserving enough to allow himself the luxury of _feeling_. “How can I give you a name if I don’t know that name myself?”

“But there’s gotta be somethin’,” Futaba butts in now, brows furrowed and her cheeks puffed out in the way she does it when she’s frustrated about something, from a poorly coded line she wrote or her curry’s not as spicy as she likes it to be. “Hanahaki doesn’t spring out of _nowhere_ , the love is quite literally _planted_ inside of you!”

“Why do I get the feeling that you don’t care at all, Yusuke,” Ann narrows her eyes at him, crossing her arms as she stares him down like a very cross owner, like Yusuke might as well be a disobedient puppy with the way she makes him feel like curling in on himself in shame, “Through this entire conversation all you’ve done is _not_ help at all!”

“Because I don’t,” Yusuke ends up brushing off the topic, turning his head back in order to face his painting—the one that’s been at the forefront of his thoughts for the last few days or so, further aggravated by the breath of a deadline ghosting the back of his neck, like a slow death beginning to creep over his body. “I have better things to think about, like how to properly express this painting without looking like a complete amateur.”

He feels something inside of his chest dig in deep, scratching against the walls of his lungs and crawling up his windpipe. He forces down the urge to cough by reaching out for a glass of water, downing it quickly as he attempts to wash away the discomfort—like a hot shower cleaning away grime off skin.

“Anything you paint is way above anything an amateur does anyway,” Ann mutters under her breath. “Anyway, if we can’t figure out who is it, we might need to look into medical methods?”

“Medical— _oh,_ ” Futaba begins sounding confused, but once she realises what Ann means, she straightens up with a look of realisation lighting up like a lightbulb, “But Ann, Akira said that the doctor mentioned removing the flowers artificially will remove feelings and emotions completely.”

“So be it,” Yusuke cuts in, finding that he can’t really allow himself any further delay, if he wants to finish this painting in time. He speaks with finality, implying very obviously that he doesn’t _want_ to talk about this anymore. “What’s the doctor’s name again? Doctor Takemi? I’ll see her tomorrow then.”

Yusuke throws his focus into the painting in front of him, but he feels the scrutiny of a stare at the back of his head, like someone’s trying to bore a hole into his skull and reveal all his secrets. He doesn’t have time, nor the energy to continue this line of questioning.

Behind him, the women turn their heads towards each other, throwing worried gazes at each other as Yusuke drowns himself further in the head-splitting problem that is his painting.

\---

He stares at the bottle in his hand, maliciously blue as he swishes the lone air bubble around.

There’s a lot to think about, apparently, even more than he had considered when he had so vehemently declared that he would rot the stems inside of him in pursuit of his so-called true desire in pursuit of artistic expression.

The doctor herself had warned him very clearly. There is no space for misinterpretation from how forward Dr. Takemi had been earlier on— _take this_ only _if you’re sure that you want these feelings to go away. But be warned, the medicine will also kill off the root of the cause._

_There is a high chance that you’ll lose your memories of that person, along with your emotions._

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem to Yusuke. It would be easy to settle the problem if he knew the person in the first place—he’d simply assess the situation to see whether a confession was feasible or not and, should it not be, he’d take the medicine without question. He’d let the blue liquid slowly burn away at stem and blossom alike, and once his lungs are cleared, he’d continue on as per normal, throwing himself into the flurry of art that beckons him like a siren’s call.

But he doesn’t know who this mystery person is.

So he sits on top of the vintage leather surface of LeBlanc’s booth seat, the one in the middle that had a strange stain in the corner of the table—looking suspiciously like someone had dumped a whole cup of coffee on the table and they’d left it sitting long enough for the liquid to imprint into the wood.

A cup of tea sits in front of him today, barely touched and still steaming where he’d left it. His throat feels scratched up to hell and back from the inside, and the anxiety in his heart only keeps building more and more as his head floats around everything and nothing at the same time. _He’s dying. He doesn’t have quite enough to pay for new paints this month. The painting in his bedroom sits uncompleted, haunting white where a woman should be staring at him deep into the night. He’s dying. He should look into cheaper meal plans. He’s dying._

“Penny for your thoughts?” Deep, grainy muttering jolts him out of his thoughts, and he turns his head towards the counter. He’s forgotten that he’s not alone, and the twisted expression of—whatever he has on his face—is probably a clue to the turbulent thoughts plaguing his mind.

“Did Akira tell you what happened, Boss?” Yusuke asks cautiously, but he’s not quite sure what there is to be cautious about.

“No. I don’t care about you young uns’ and your angst, I’ve had my turn over 30 years ago.” Sojiro lies, and Yusuke knows damn well he’s downplaying his care from the many times he’s been at the receiving end of Sojiro’s concern. He watches the old man lean his hip against the counter, the half-smoked cigarette hanging through his lips lazily while Sojiro crosses his arms—nothing out of place from his usual.

“Well,” Yusuke racks his brain, trying to figure out just what to say to him, “What is it like to be in love, Boss?”

The question clearly comes as a shock to Sojiro, from how wide those eyes go under thin, silver-wire glasses. He knows it comes out of left-field, he’s never uttered a single word pertaining to romance in the entire time he’s been friends with Akira and Futaba, and a regular to Café LeBlanc itself. Luckily for the both of them, Sojiro recovers quickly, clearing his throat and straightening his frame up.

“Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself into something else, huh, kiddo?” Sojiro reaches back and rubs the back of his head, “Well. I’m not gonna probe, since you clearly don’t want to talk about it. But if I could offer my two cents…”

“Being in love is kind of like painting.”

 _Painting_? Yusuke thinks to himself, and by the way Sojiro’s lips quirk up at the corner, his incredulous voice had betrayed any cover of composure he’s so painstakingly kept across this entire ordeal.

“May I know what you’re trying to get at, Boss?”

“Well,” The smoke from his cigarette continues to waft in the air, and Yusuke watches the smoke stream paint a wispy-white line in thin air, “You don’t really _know_ what love is until you see it. Like a painting. While you’re sketching, while you’re layering on the colours, you _think_ you got a good idea of what it’s going to look like until you’re done with it—and you got yourself a painting that looks nothing like what’s in your head.”

Yusuke thinks quietly on those words. _Looks nothing like what’s inside my head._

“Then what should love look like then?”

Sojiro chuckles as he reaches down, picking up the little tumbler the entire group had gotten him as a Christmas gift. Yusuke watches him take a swig from the nice black-and-red metallic cylinder, and the lump in his throat jumps back and forth a couple times before he pulls his tips away from the rim, parting in a sigh.

“It looks different for everyone. It should boil down to the same thing, though. Whoever—or whatever—you love should make you happy. What makes _you_ happy, Yusuke?”

He doesn’t have an answer. Not yet. He doesn’t have it even as the pale liquid in his teacup cools to a chill. He doesn’t have it when he leaves LeBlanc, hours after the sun sets past the skyline, and the sounds of the city lost to the dark, night sky.

On the ground trailing out of LeBlanc, white petals stained pink at the ends scatter, like an arrow leading out of the alley into Yongen-Jaya Station.

\---

If you told Yusuke half a year ago that he’d be stuck to his uncomfortably small and firm dorm bed, covered in petals for _god knows who_ , and Ann unpacking a container of chicken soup on his desk in a room that holds two people comfortably—and gets unbearably cramped at three, he’d laugh.

There are only four days left until his deadline, with much on the line—including his scholarship and his reputation as an artist. The painting hasn’t made any progress since the day he first coughed out entire gardens’ worth of petals onto his floor, and the sickness isn’t making him feel any better about his circumstances.

It’s getting harder to breathe. It’s taking up much more effort for him to take a simple breath of air. He feels the garden in his lungs grow larger and larger with every passing day, and he’s not surprised if his lungs already sustained long-lasting damage, _if_ he ever recovers.

He doesn’t know if he’ll recover now. It's laughable, really. Stupid. He just wanted to finish his painting, and then he goes ahead and contracts a terminal illness. _Genius._

The painting continues to stare at him from across the room, sitting on the easel so innocently like it isn’t nagging at him incessantly at all hours, from his waking moments to his mind sunk deep in the waters of slumber. As if God was playing a joke on him, the sunlight from his window is at a perfect angle to illuminate the painting and its Autumn hues— _impossible_ for Yusuke to try to ignore it, even if he tried.

“Yusuke,” Ann sits on the stool she pulled from where he has his easel set up, towering a little over the bed from how tall the stool’s legs are. She looks hilariously like a doll from where he’s laying down, the woman looking very much like a museum exhibit from how radiant she looks, as she always does. “I know this is getting annoying for you—”

“Yes, it is,” Yusuke cuts in, only stopping his snark remark when the blossoms in this throat demands a cough, needing to clear out his windpipe so he could _breathe_ , curse whichever God decided _asphyxiation_ is a good way to show how much you love someone. 

“—It’s annoying for you,” Ann places her hand on his chest and strokes gently, the action hopefully soothing enough for Yusuke to feel even a little bit better, “But we gotta talk about it.”

“There’s nothing I’ve been hiding from you, Ann. I truly do not know who I am in love with.”

The look at Ann gives him does not hold back on anything she’s feeling. It’s amazing how many emotions Ann can show in one look alone, and it’s a trait he treasures deeply and actively seeks out, seeking to mentally catalogue and archive every single expression of Ann’s. She’s beautiful, he’s thought so of her from the very moment he first laid his eyes on her.

Watching her in her natural element, serene eyes focused on whatever she’s looking at—it always puts warm in his heart.

“Then,” Ann’s expression is indiscernible, and Yusuke finds it impossible to tell what she’s thinking, “What is love to you?”

Across the last week-and-a-half, he’s never really thought of it. What love is to him. What makes him swell with happiness and warmth? Maybe he should have gotten to that from the very beginning, perhaps it would have helped him get to the very bottom of it all.

“Art makes me happy,” He says, simple and to-the-point. It’s an answer he’s given through his entire life, “When I manage to express beauty in its unadulterated form… That’s what makes me happy.”

It’s honest, at least. He thinks back to the many pieces he’s done, the feelings he’s bared on canvas to the world, hoping to reveal the innermost feelings that he struggles to vocalise into actualisation. Yusuke has always been a man of action, unlike some loud cretins in the group. He chooses to show what he means, not tell, but the inability to even process what his heart means sometimes gets _quite_ vexing.

“That’s good,” Ann’s lips finally curl into that small smile he loves so much. She always looks like she knows _something_ when she smiles like this, cheeky and secretive even as her striking eyes stare straight into your soul and unearth all your secrets. “That sounds like what love should be, really.”

Happiness. What mattered to him. What made him happy.

“What makes _you_ happy, Ann?”

The question clearly comes as a surprise to Ann, her eyes widening to near-perfect circles as she eyes Yusuke, lips parted in speechless wonder. She hadn’t expected it, he thinks. Of course she wouldn’t, _he’s_ the one pathetically dying in bed in front of her. But even still, he ached to hear it. He’s seen Ann many times, in her happiest.

She always looks the same, brightening up the room with a smile that’s so effortless but so powerful in the meantime. Too powerful for Yusuke to replicate on canvas. Too obscure to capture and keep for himself. It hypnotises him like a spell cast upon him, it frustrates him like vines wrapped around his ankles pulling him back from ever taking another step forward—but it enchants him in the end. Like he is her unintended captive, and he had willingly given himself to her.

He forces down another bout of coughing by stilling himself, not needing another round of choking to ruin his pursuit for an answer. He holds his breath. It’s definitely not a good idea, but he does it anyway.

“I guess,” Ann begins, thinking, contemplative in nature as she glances out the window, watching… Whatever is outside. He knows it’s probably the tree hanging by his window that she’s looking at, but the look on her face makes her seem like she’s staring at something more than just a simple plant. He thinks of Goddesses. “This is gonna be a strange answer, but… I guess it’s when people look at me. Like, _actually_ look at me. It gets tiring when people think of me as that one girl who’s really pretty, who’s a model, and nothing more. You know?”

Yusuke has to pause for a cough, his body jolting with every wheeze of his chest, but no petals fall out. Thankfully. He doesn’t want Ann to clean up the mess for him when he’s in this state.

“But,” Yusuke finally speaks up after he’s sure he can carry a sentence without spontaneously dying from a lack of oxygen filling his lungs. “You’re more than that. You’re smart, you’re loyal, you chase your ideals tirelessly and unapologetically. Anyone who can’t see that is quite the idiot, I’m afraid.”

He’s spiteful. And rightfully so. To see Ann as an _object_ and nothing more—how degrading. She deserves more than that.

“Then I guess _you_ make me happy, Yusuke.”

And the world stops. Yusuke swears it does, he doesn’t hear the cars outside the dormitory building rush by, he doesn’t hear the chatter of his schoolmates a few rooms down, he feels like he’s been dunked into a pool—everything slowing down and stopping for just a moment before he rises up for air again.

And it moves again.

The burn in his chest calms a bit, and as if he hadn’t been withering away on the bed like a sad, wilting plant, he feels lighter than he has in days.

“Is it strange,” Yusuke sounds strangely tense, like a puzzle piece finally fit into place. He doesn’t know it, of course, his heart is pounding in his ears—too distracting for him to think straight. “To say that I feel a little better, all of a sudden?”

Ann giggles and shakes her head. Her delicate hands reach out to take one of Yusuke’s, holding it tenderly on her lap, and she watches over him like a protective presence. _Don’t worry,_ her eyes seem to twinkle in earnest, _I’m here._

“Nope. That’s always a good sign.”

The garden in his lungs begin to wilt, but he feels something blossom in his heart.

Behind them, the Goddess on the canvas watches them from her Autumn abode, white-blank gaze waiting expectantly.

\---

“It’s—?” Ann pauses when she lays her eyes on the exhibit in front of her. Yusuke’s finished his painting, finally. A day of rest had been enough for Yusuke to be able to get up and work on his art, even more productive than he usually is. He is unsure of what is the cause of his sudden recovery, how he didn’t have a single petal left in his lungs at the end of that week, once he’s handed in the painting to the person-in-charge, but whatever. He’s done with it.

“I thought you were the best model for this.” He honestly replies to her, glancing up to the canvas hung on the white wall, high up enough for everyone to stare at it in awe.

Where white had been, the Goddess smiles upon her spot in the middle of the painting with a baby-blue gaze, golden tresses cascading around her small face like golden waterfalls. She sits with the fruits of her labour, of Autumn leaves and baskets of fruit. In her hair lays a single white blossom, soft and subtle against the sheen of her hair, but noticeable in its quiet beauty.

It looks nothing like what he’s pictured at the very start of his conceptualising—golden hair replacing deep auburn, and brown eyes replaced by the sky’s hues. It’s even more beautiful that he expected it to be, and he can’t say for certain that he’s upset it turned out the way it did.

“I didn’t know anyone could see me like that,” She breathes out the breath she’s held for a while, whether she’s aware of it, Yusuke does not know. But seeing the warmth on her face, achingly tender sentiment written across her features, it’s almost worth the entire two weeks of frustration. Almost. “This is… This is _beautiful_ , Yusuke.”

“I only paint what I see.” He tries to sound indifferent, turning his attention back up to the Goddess he had poured so much effort into, working all the details of her skin with his brushes and tools. He even spots the little flecks of gold he’s managed to paint into baby-blue irises, and he smiles.

But before he even realises, a warmth wraps around his hand, and he looks down to see Ann threading her fingers through the gaps of his, holding on tight. She turns her attention to the taller man, and she only grins with the brilliance of the sun, casually, freely and effortlessly.

“Then I’m glad _you_ see me like this then.”

Yusuke’s heart does a flip in his chest, and he thinks what he’s feeling is probably happiness. _Probably._

**Author's Note:**

> and yes, i do think yusuke is smart. but when it comes to his own feelings he's like "huh? what is love? can you eat that? what the f--"
> 
> acacia – concealed love  
> azalea – take care of yourself for me  
> almond blossom - contemplation
> 
> [come say hi!](https://twitter.com/nekohmy)


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